A bit of pining for home was behind the success of Taihape’s Jamie McLean as she won her second Golden Shears woolhandling title in Mssterton today.

There were nine years between the two successes, the 2008n win in the Junior final and today’s Senior victory.

The 27-year-old McLean had in the meantime been living in the South Island working for Pleasant Point contractor and former top Open-class shearer Adrian Cox, until she turned home to the Central North Island for her late nan’s unveiling in February last year.

“I was just missing home,” she said.

She went back to work in the woolsheds around Taihape and started making a mark early this season when she won the Senior final at the Royal Show’s Great Raihania Shesars in Hastings in October. She later won in Feilding at the Manawatu A and P Show and at the Central Hawke’s Bay A and P Show in Waipukurau.

It was a tough final in which the runner-up was Erana Smith, from Ruatoria but now living in Southland.